Friday, March 05, 2004
On Tomorrow's Show - In the first hour of the Northern Alliance Radio Network - The Week In Review, with Saint Paul, Captain Ed and Rocket Man.
At 1PM, we'll have a guest from Saint Olaf College, talking about the response to the "Peace-In" at St. Olaf College, featuring Big Trunk. Rocketman and King will join the conversation.
Finally, in the two-o'clock hour, we'll be discussing the Hack Columnist of the Week with JB Doubtless, King and some other special guests.
Call in, starting at noon! Oh, yeah - and listen in! AM1280 The Patriot can be heard throughout much of the metro area.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/5/2004 05:15:25 AM
Part IV - Teaching Tyranny
Most of the great names in the history of American democracy, philosophy and independent thought, not to mention industry, learned to read, compose and calculate in more or less the same way the farmers of De Tocqueville's observation did; any way they could. Lincoln famously taught himself; many more learned by doing in simple country schools, or sunday school, or while being tutored by kids not much more advanced than they. Many of the greatest writers, thinkers, artists and engineers of the Edinburgh Renaissance - Watt, MacAdam, Turner and many more - and their counterparts in America were self-tutored as they worked as apprentices; their achievements are monuments not only to their respective disciplines, but to the history of human achievement and the glory of liberal (small-l) government.
It's ironic that the system that teaches kids about them today is such a complete contradiction.
In the late 1800s, reactionary social theorists in the US began to worry about the number of immigrants in this country. What were these new immigrants teaching each other?
America's schools were a hodgepodge of efforts: little community schools, parochial schools, home schooling, informal tutoring and apprenticeship, and no school at all. The reactionaries were worried - they wanted to make sure the waves of immigrant children were properly indoctrinated into American life. The right place to do this, they figured, was school.
And the looked with admiration on the system Bismark had incorporated in Germany. German state education relied on all the things we regard as the norm in public education today - a strict, uniform, approved curriculum; teachers certified in their knowledge of approved curricula and methods; grade levels, and a set of promotion standards based on objective (if arbitrary) criteria.
Bismark's goal in instituting this system was to ensure that Germany's emerging militocratic society would have the raw human material it needed, sorted out just the way the military and the rest of German society needed them:
It would funnel the top 10% of society down the achievement track; they'd be the doctors, the lawyers, the professionals, academics, and the military's officers. The elite of this elite would be the generals, the presidents, the cabinet ministers and head bureaucrats.
The next 30% would be the foremen, the primary school teachers, the middle management and petty bureaucracy, and the military's noncommissioned officers.
The other 70% would be the labor, the assembly line workers, the farmers, the service sector, and the military's enlisted men.
Each of these slices of society were to be identified early, and provided with education commensurate with their station. The system lives on, to a great extent, in the German "Gymnasium" system, and the Japanese system which copied it; tests like the German "Abitur", given at age 10, determine the child's academic direction for the rest of his or her life.
And this system - which causes so many Americans to shake their heads at the soulless authoritarianism of it all - is the one ours is modeled after. Some of the windowdressing has changed - but at the end of the day, the American system of education is the first cousin of these systems. For while the pre-WWII German and Japanese systems made no bones about their desire to produce well-indoctrinated cannon-fodder and docile labor, the system we copied from Bismark was intended to create "good citizens" less in the sense that Madison and Jefferson and De Tocqueville intended than supplanting immigrant culture as quickly as possible.
But when presented with alternatives to the traditional, ?keep your butt in your seat? model of education, both the left and the right squawk.
?How will they learn what our society needs them to learn?? asks the left. ?How will they learn responsibility?? asks the right.
My question of both sides; how could you design a system that would teach either concept worse than what we have now?
How do you teach learning in a system that violates so many key principles of human cognitive development?
Where?s the responsibility when curricula and the expected results are set up years before the student takes the class? When all actions, reactions and consequences have been scripted out?
How do you teach citizenship to people who are not allowed to practice it in any meaningful way for the first 18 years of their lives?
By throwing more standards at kids? By teaching them less stuff, but more of it? By giving teachers more paperwork?
I've dreamed about solutions for years. I thought how nice it would to homeschool my kids - but I'm not independently wealthy, and the bills don't pay themselves. I've tried to get involve with groups trying to start Sudbury schools in the Twin Cities - but it takes a lot more dedication and time than those groups of frazzled overworked parents could muster, week in and week out.
So I'm trying to teach my kids that there's a huge difference between "Education" and "Schooling". They're not the same - not at all.
I don't know that it's enough. I don't worry much about my daughter; she plays the game well enough. Schools are very friendly places for girls these days. My son, on the other hand, is bored stiff. He's not regurgitating the answers demanded of him on cue. The teachers and staff wrinkle their faces in concern. "He's so bright, and we'd hate to see him not performing up to his potential..."
It's all I can do to contain myself during some meetings. "His potential to what? Absorb information that means nothing to him? Barf answers back to you on cue? The kid knows more about history and current events than any of his classmates - and some of his teachers. *I* taught him long division and multiplication when he was six years old. Why did your "program" allow that to atrophy in school? Why is it labelling a kid who is rocketing ahead of the rest of his class in areas that he cares about, and showing his boredom with the prescribed program, "Below Average?" But no. To the school system, as much as they care about him, the goal is to turn him into another unit of product, manufactured to the accepted quality standards.
I reach the end of this screed no better off than I started it. I have no answers. Talking about most education reform - standards, the cretinous "focus on the three Rs", even privatization - causes my eyes to glaze over. The nearest I can figure, the answer is this; our society needs to re-discover what "education" is. It's not a quantifiable process, like manufacturing Buttoneers. It's teaching children - people - how to find their own level in life, whatever that is. I'd rather that my kids grow up to be dishwashers that find intense, lasting fulfillment writing country music or building fishing shacks or developing grand unification theories in their spare time than college professors who are miserable and unfulfilled in their lives - or, for that matter, be anything that allows them to best harness their skills, passions and intelligence to give them a life they're satisfied with, and to be good people to boot.
I think the school system we have is a lousy start toward that. Most of the reforms proposed are akin to rearranging the deck chairs...no. No, we need a new cliche to describe the system of education we have in this country. It's rearranging the patio chairs behind the house of a family whose parents are emotionally crippled and stunted from generations of ritualized emotional abuse so comprehensive that nobody knows who really has the problem.
(Parts One, Two and Three)
posted by Mitch Berg 3/5/2004 05:03:49 AM
Sullivan on Cooke - Andrew Sullivan comments on the retirement of Alistair Cooke from the BBC.
It was an oasis of calm, fascination, and piercing intelligence. How he sustained that quality for so long is awe-inspiring. He was still at it in his 90s, until he retired this week. He gave me my first understanding of America - that great, mysterious giant that loomed across an ocean. And I will always be grateful. He is irreplaceable. But his example of translating this wonderful and completely baffling place to the British has been an inspiration for me as I write each week for the Sunday Times in London. He made me understand what a privilege it is to convey something of this country's diversity, paradox and exhilarating energy. And how impossible it is to come close to his wit, erudition and extraordinarily good judgment.
In the seventies, Cooke hosted a long miniseries, "Alistair Cooke's America", which started on PBS and migrated to syndication in the early eighties (and is not available on DVD yet - which is the subject of a petition drive of sorts. It's a wrong we need to right). Each episode explored a different aspect of America; the birth of the nation, exceptionalism, strength, becoming American, and on and on, exploring what America and being American both are in a way that was gloriously accessible yet stuck to your intellectual ribs.
His "Letters to America" radio series - which ran on the BBC for around, ahem, sixty years - was heard on MPR's BBC simulcasts, and remained a fascinating, loving, critical portrait of our place and people throughout.
Cooke just retired from the BBC at age 90. I, for one, miss him already.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/5/2004 05:00:19 AM
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Woo Hoo! - I finally got onto Taranto's Best of the Web!
Eighteen years ago, during the democratic revolution that overthrew Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, a certain haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, arrived on the scene as part of a congressional delegation of election observers. In an article for Rolling Stone, later reprinted in his collection "Republican Party Reptile" (and excerpted last year by blogger Mitch Berg), journalist P.J. O'Rourke described the scene
I was wondering where yesterday's surge in hits came from. Welcome, OJ readers!
posted by Mitch Berg 3/4/2004 08:03:32 AM
Foreign Polity - I was going to respond to John Kerry's idiotic statement ("This president has in fact created terrorists where they didn't exist," he said. "And I believe this president has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country. And we need to hold him accountable.")...
...but Captain Ed already gave the response I wanted to.
Read it all.
And, if you're a Kerry supporter, weep.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/4/2004 06:31:21 AM
Kerry Picking - Some on the left (I got this from Centrisity) are claiming the right is "cherrypicking" John Kerry's record on defense to find damaging votes.
As evidence, they cite this column by Fred Kaplan.
The piece deserves a detailed fisking - which I'll give it either tomorrow or Monday, when I have the time. It's a masterpiece of deceptive spin, more full of holes than Dennis Kucinich's campaign staff.
If you're a Democrat and you're pinning your hope on this article to restore Americans' faith in Kerry as someone we can trust on Foreign Policy, the Defense and the War on Terror, I'll give you the opportunity to get a head-start:
As Drudge says - "Developing".
posted by Mitch Berg 3/4/2004 05:42:56 AM
War Hero - John Kerry's war record may or may not stand up to much detailed scrutiny, according to Thomas Lipscomb in the NYSun.
Assuming it ever gets detailed scrutiny. But then, that's what we're here for. [Admiral] ‘Bud’ Zumwalt got it right when he assessed Kerry as having large ambitions — but promised that his career in Vietnam would haunt him if he were ever on the national stage.” And this statement was made despite the fact Zumwalt had personally pinned a Silver Star on Mr. Kerry.
Hm. What did Kerry know, and when did he know it?
Mr. Kerry was assigned to Swiftboat 44 on December 1, 1968. Within 24 hours, he had his first Purple Heart. Mr. Kerry accumulated three Purple Hearts in four months with not even a day of duty lost from wounds, according to his training officer. It’s a pity one cannot read his Purple Heart medical treatment reports which have been withheld from the public. The only person preventing their release is Mr. Kerry.
Lipscomb continues: By his own admission during those four months, Mr. Kerry continually kept ramming his Swiftboat onto an enemy-held shore on assorted occasions alone and with a few men, killing civilians and even a wounded enemy soldier. One can begin to appreciate Zumwalt’s problem with Mr. Kerry as commander of an unarmored craft dependent upon speed of maneuver to keep it and its crew from being shot to pieces.
Kerry's role model, the original JFK, was also a famously reckless boat handler; his nickname (according to the bio "PT109" by Robert Donovan), Kennedy's nickname in his squadron was "Crash". More conscious emulation on Kerry's part? Mr. Kerry now refers to those civilian deaths as “accidents of war.”And within four days of his third Purple Heart, Mr. Kerry applied to take advantage of a technicality which allowed him to request immediate transfer to a stateside post.
Y'see, here's a part where I'd given Kerry too much credit. Officer rotations through combat billets in Vietnam was very fast - where enlisted grunts were rotated out after a year, officer slots were turned over every six months, mainly to give more officers more combat experience. I'd figured Kerry's four-month tour was related to that.
My bad.
Read the whole thing, of course.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/4/2004 05:33:54 AM
Why Schools Can't Work - Part III - The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
When De Tocqueville came to America, he noticed something astounding; the peasants could read! "Simple" farmers would spend their evenings reading by the fire, soaking up everything from the latest penny potboilers and broadsheets to the latest and greatest in political philosophy.
Where and how did they learn not only to read, but to crave reading and the learning that came with it? From nearly as many places and by as many means as there were people, practically; from small one-room schools, from older siblings and parents, from church (reading the Bible was a key precept of the protestantism that drove so many colonists)...
...but the "How" and "Where" is less interesting than the "Why". The reason De Tocqueville was shocked by the literacy of the American farmer was that it was in stark comparison to the illiteracy of the European peasant. Americans learned to read because America was built on an idea - and to be up to speed on the idea, one had to practice the currency of its trade, just as one had to know how to use a plow to practice farming. The currency of liberty (both political and religious) was literacy. And so Americans learned how to read - by any means available and necessary.
Today, it's accepted both as an article of faith and a challenge; a kid's gotta learn to read before he or she is seven, or there's something drastically wrong. They need to be gotten into a remedial reading class, and forced to learn to read, NOW, or their entire future will be at risk!, for the love of God!
It's not like this everywhere.
In the Sudbury School, in Framingham, Massachusetts, kids aren't required to learn to read at all. Nobody tells them to learn their ABCs. Nobody tests their fluency in their native language.
And yet every single kid at Sudbury (and the many schools around the country modelled after it) learns to read. When they're ready, they do it; some learn from other kids, some from the staff, some even teach themselves from the bits of phonics they pick up from learning the alphabet; kids can be incredible at applying logic to problems around them. And while nobody tells them to do it, they all do - every single one, according to friends who are involved with Sudbury schools around the country. And they do it for the same reason the farmers did it 200 years ago - because it's obviously in their interest to do it, and because they realize they can.
Sudbury advocates use an interesting parallel; almost every child learns how to speak, barring some sort of mental or physical defect that makes normal learning impossible. Speaking is vastly more complicated than reading - and yet, by hanging around adults and watching and hearing it done, and seeing the results of verbal communication and feeding their innate thirst to participate in that communication, somehow, almost every child manages to be fluent in their family's native language by age five.
But if Government were to step in and decree that "all children must learn to speak by age three", and added the force of compulsion and the stigma of failure to the process of learning, and stick their butts in chairs so that the university-trained experts could teach them to speak now! (under threat of action against the parents if they declined), you'd see a logarithmic increase in the number of "speech disabilities" diagnosed, new remedial speech programs springing up in buildings around the country, and entire departments full of learned academics devoted to studying a "disability" that does not exist in the wild.
So if most children can learn the gargantuan task of speech without the aid of teachers, specialists, programs and post-graduate expertise, why are the relatively trivial tasks of reading, arithmetic and composition seeming to get harder and harder to "teach", the more resources we put into them?
Not only does the system not work - it is completely counter to the way people actually learn things.
How does this relate to politics?
Tomorrow.
(See Part I and Part II)
posted by Mitch Berg 3/4/2004 05:08:37 AM
Bile Pages - Lileks doesn't like the new Yellow Pages. He doesn't know the half of it.
The new phones books arrived today. Usually not something I note unless I’m desperate for a column. (Years ago I reviewed one, treating it like a piece of literature. Hah! Boy, that was original.) But this time the phone book is truly different: it combines yellow and white pages, and splits them into two big two-toned books...So why do something so obviously stupid? Because they don’t own the Yellow Pages market anymore. There’s a new competing book in town, just as big, just as yellow – but it lacks the lineage that somehow confers legitimacy on the Dex Yelllow Pages. From Qwest you can trace a direct line back to a Bell, I think, and for some reason that’s comforting. (The Yellow Pages were the original Google.
The worst part, though? I'm actually going to have to pay attention to what's in the Yellow Pages. For years, Qwestdex.com was, if somewhat cantankerous, at least a useful and free way to get both white and yellow listings. For years, I didnt' even unwrap the directories that popped up on my porch periodically.
No more. Because Qwest bollixed up the directory website so badly, it's completely unusable.
Up until probably three months ago, qwestdex was a little touchy about input (you had to put in "St paul", not "Saint Paul"), but, and here's an important part, once you put the stuff in, actual results came out. If you knew a James Gronsolosky in Mendota, you'd enter:
Last name: Gronsolosky
First name: James
City: Mendota
And you'd get:
Gronsolosky, James (651) etc.
With the new site, "Dexonline", there's a new wrinkle. Say you want to find the Pizza Hut in Falcon Heights.
Enter "Pizza Hut", select "Falcon Heights" as the city, and uncheck the "Check surrounding area" box. Click the button.
You get dozens of pizzerias; Pizza Nabob in Elk River, Pizza Swede in Hugo, Pizza Spew in Uptown, and dozens of Pizza huts as far afield as Winona.
But not Falcon Heights.
Re-enter the data - you knew you didn't ask for "surrounding area".
Same list.
Repeat this process for everything you want to try to find, for two straight months.
With the old site, I found what I was looking for, every time. With the new site, it's about 30%. Speaking as someone who designs software to be usable, I'd say it's a big step back.
If they're trying to drive business to their toll 411 line, it's a lame way to do it.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/4/2004 05:02:46 AM
Clear And Present Non-Factor - Last year, as we were getting ready to move into Iraq, the left talked out both sides of its mouth, demanding that we extend what had already been 18 months of diplomatic Schühplottel at the UN even further before attacking a regime that had violated hundreds of pounds' worth of UN sanctions, had engaged in decades of inhuman atrocities, was linked with terrorist groups and had paid money quite openly to terrorists, diverted billions of dollars of oil-for-food money for weapons, bribes and graft, and was believed by everyone to have had WMDs...
BUT
...demanded immediate military action in Liberia, in a civil war that posed absolutely no threat to any significant US interest.
Today, the left - as manifested in its de facto leader, John Kerry - is still exercised about getting meticulous international approval before taking any action that would protect US interests (say, against thermonuclear immolation)...
...but has his saber drawn and is doing his best Clint Eastwood impression in regard to Haiti?Kerry (D-Mass.) said he would have sent troops to Haiti even without international support to quell the revolt against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
And the US interest in Haiti is exactly what?
"President Kerry would never have allowed that to get where it is," Kerry said, though he added he's not "a big Aristide fan."
A Kerry administration would have given the rebels a 48-hour ultimatum to come up with a peaceful agreement - "otherwise, we're coming in," he said.
"I would intervene with the international community, and absent an international force, I'd do it unilaterally," he said, adding the most important thing was to protect democracy.
This is like Mad How's "135,000 Moderate Moslem Troops" canard; unverifiable, not based in fact - and what Gramma would have called "talking out his ass".
The thought that anyone would trust these...wanker with foreign policy not only astounds me - it makes me say things I may not regret in terms of substance, but certainly in style, later on.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/4/2004 05:00:20 AM
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Sullivan Bottoms, Bounces? - In today's Dish:
It struck me as a strong one on domestic issues. On energy independence, and protecting the Constitution, it was a winner. He looks like a potential president. But it was deeply worrying in one respect. The war on terror was barely mentioned. This on a day of appalling carnage in Iraq. I fear this man simply doesn't get it. No one should support him for the highest office in the land until he proves he understands our enemy; and demonstrates that he will get up every day in the Oval Office to see how he can take the fight to the Islamists. I don't see that fire right now. In fact, I don't even see a flicker. It's a deal-breaker for me.
Mr. Sullivan:
As a longtime fan of yours who is critical of your (hopefully brief) dalliance with the notion of creative gridlock for the very reason you cite above, and applied to all Democrat contenders (except maybe Lieberman) from the beginning, I have to ask - and I'll ask in advance that you excuse my gruffness on the issue:
< ahem >
DUH! DO YOU THINK SO?
Is THIS why you're the big, highly-paid editor of the New Republic and a guy who brings in $100K a year plus for blogging? For THIS blinding flash of insight - "Kerry's clueless about the war on terror?"
< deep breath >
OK. I'm done now.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/3/2004 08:35:58 AM
Caucusian - Went to the District 66B GOP caucus last night.
HUGE turnout. If you think the base isn't energized in Saint Paul, think again.
And that's even with the state GOP's crummy attitude about the "inner city", which is a subject for a later post.
I'll be seeing you at the 66 convention - and hopefully, the CD4 after that!
UPDATE: The good news: I got the resolution the SCSU Scholars proposed passed.
The bad news: I was the only person in my precinct attending - so I'm the precinct chair, secretary, convenor and delegate.
The good news: Mine was the only solo precinct, by a long shot. Some of the precincts over in DFL-strangled-dominated Frogtown were very well-represented, and Roseville jammed the place.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/3/2004 07:18:23 AM
Why Schools Can't Succeed - Part II: Siddown, Shaddap
While conservatives and liberals differ sharply on their views on how what an education is, it's ironic that criticizing the "Sit in your chair and learn" model of education draws virtually the same conclusion from both sides of the spectrum; "What, are you crazy?"
To the liberal, the institution of public education is intended to be the great equalizer (although the liberal leadership belies that vision; the ranks of students at Breck, Blake and Saint Paul Academy are full of the children of DFL mavens and liberal activists). It's everyone's duty to society to sit in that chair and learn!
To the conservative, the act of making your brat sit in that chair and learn the Three R's, Dammit!" is seen as an essential character building exercise - sort of like hazing.
Both sides tend to agree - there's a base of knowledge about our society that a kid needs to have to be a productive adult. Exactly what's in that base is open to endless, vituperative debate, like the current rhubarb over the state's social studies standards.
But - one way or another - the goal of both sides is to shovel the kids through 12 years of a planned program to make sure that everyone "knows" the same stuff. Some kids do - depending on where you are, a majority of kids who started in first grade might walk across the stage twelve years later and get their diploma - and like the Zuni shamen we discussed yesterday, we'll assume that the schools are the reason why the learning took place.
I'm less and less convinced of that every day. The more I see the way education works - and, more accurately, "doesn't work" with kids who might not be on the traditional college track, and especially with kids who don't respond to the punishments and enticements of the traditional "Sit down, shut up and learn!" school of education - the more depressed I get.
In any segment of society, on any subject, the "achievement" scores of any group of people, when plotted out on a graph, will resemble a bell curve. If the subject is History, my score will probably come in "above average" against the general population (and in the 99.9th percentile when measured against liberal bloggers). If the subject is auto mechanics, I'd score an "C" against the general population, a "D" among rural males, and a solid "F-" among auto mechanics. It's not a big subject for me.
Now, picture this scenario:
How do you think you'd do?
Fanciful? Really?
What separates that scenario from our school system today?
And why do we have that system? More tomorrow.
(Part I here)
posted by Mitch Berg 3/3/2004 06:48:51 AM
Tort and ReTort - Jeff Fecke's not a bad guy. But reading his blog, you can tell he cut his political teeth on Bill Clinton.
He wrote a long response to my Open Letter to Gay Marriage Supporters yesterday. He made this point, slightly edited for brevity:First of all, I'll stipulate for the purpose of argument that the definition of marriage is stable and cross-cultural. I can show many reasons why it is not, has not been, and likely never will be, but that's beside the point.
No, it's not. In every significant society in the world, "Marriage" has always been between men and women; usually but not always one of each. The total number of spouses per marriage may be more than two, but the number of genders involved, worldwide, throughout history, has pretty uniformly been "two". No real way around it.
Jeff continues:The fact is, most Americans do have a clear idea of what marriage is, and it is the union of a man and woman who love each other. Or as Minnesota Statute 517.01 states:
Voila!The secret to all things! Write or rewrite the law!Marriage a civil contract.
But this, of course, leads to an obvious answer to Mitch's second question: what is the new definition that can pass legal muster? Quite simple:
Marriage, so far as its validity in law is concerned, is a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties, capable in law of contracting, is essential. Lawful marriage may be contracted only between persons of the opposite sex and only when a license has been obtained as provided by law and when the marriage is contracted in the presence of two witnesses and solemnized by one authorized, or whom one or both of the parties in good faith believe to be authorized, so to do. Marriages subsequent to April 26, 1941, not so contracted shall be null and void. Marriage a civil contract.
Strike thirteen words, add five. Not difficult, not at all. The courts wouldn't even blink.
Marriage, so far as its validity in law is concerned, is a civil contract between a man and a woman two people, to which the consent of the parties, capable in law of contracting, is essential. Lawful marriage may be contracted only between persons of the opposite sex and only when a license has been obtained as provided by law and when the marriage is contracted in the presence of two witnesses and solemnized by one authorized, or whom one or both of the parties in good faith believe to be authorized, so to do. Marriages subsequent to April 26, 1941, not so contracted shall be null and void.
Think of the ills we could fix if a simple rewrite was really all it took. For example, let's take the following sentence:Mitch Berg is a single guy who spends his limited free time blogging.
Not good enough. Let's fix reality via re-write:Mitch Berg is a single guy who
Wow. I took out six words, added eight, and reality suddenly looks much better! And no court would even blink at it, either...spends his limited free time blogging is in a torrid relationship with Marisa Tomei.
...although Ms. Tomei might.
Absurd? Sure. Just as absurd at the notion that striking references to gender, and opposite gender, will change peoples perceptions about what marriage is supposed to be.
Now, Jeff's redefinition might make sense if he doesn't try to define "Marriage", but rather "Civil contractual union". Those are the parts of "marriage" that might rationally be construed to be subject to equal protection.
Maybe.
Jeff says:Now wait, you say--didn't Mitch say "Please show me a line that will allow two 'people who love each other' that will not allow any pair of roommates or pals or co-conspirators to call themselves 'Married' for any reason they want. By the way, 'people do that today - look at Britney Spears' will not cut it as an answer[.]"
It's completely irrelevant to the real issue. It's like saying "Lots of women have children for stupid reasons. That shouldn't be used to prevent men from conceiving and bearing children!" The issue is not "can the likes of Britney Spears get married to guys for stupid reasons", any more than it is "Should marriage be harder to get into?" (as good an idea as that'd be). The question is "If Britney wanted to enter into a "lifetime partnership" with Christina Aguilera instead of Jason Alexander, would that have been a "marriage" in the sense of the term that the vast majority of the people are willing to recognize?
Yes he did--but he can't take that off the table, because that's the heart of the issue.
He also notes:There is a good argument to be made that the reason Roe v. Wade is still raw is that it was imposed on the nation by an activist Supreme Court.
Right. Because it involved a definition of "Citizen" and "Human" that truly was barbaric.
Then again, when Loving v. Virginia was decided, support for anti-miscegenation laws dwarfed support of banning gay marriage. Over 90% of Americans were in favor of letting some states keep the races "pure." An activist court decided that case (and changed the definition of marriage in this country, for what it's worth). And now, only 38 years later, the idea of making a marriage of a black man and a white woman illegal just for the color of skin involved seems barbaric.
Nobody this side of the lunatic fringe believes gays are not subject to the same rights, laws and protections that everyone else is. This isn't about the definition of "Human". It's about the definition of "Marriage".
Which is why in a perfect world I'd say "get government out of the business of performing marriages, and let them stick with enforcing contracts". Let them issue civil unions, and leave the more ephemeral concept of 'Marriage" up to churches (and, I guess, ship captains), where the subject belongs, and let people decide where and how they want to observe marriage.
What is going to happen if we change the definition of "Marriage"? For starters, the market will change the definition of "Insured". Look for insurers and employers to drop, or reduce, the benefits of marriage, as the concept of marriage becomes too open to cover anymore.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/3/2004 06:32:13 AM
Perspectives on Specs - The visual art gene skipped a generation in my family, from my mother and my sister to my kids. I have no aptitude at drawinag or painting - my artistic abilities are purely musical and, arguably, prose writing.
But my kids are both quite talented (and it's safe to say that they got as much of that from their mother as from my side). My son in particular loves art - he won the State Fair art show in his age bracket in 2002 for the most adorable sculpture I've ever seen.
So my kids are the visual artists - but I try. I'm particularly illiterate at the history of painting. Yet through the fog of my lack of knowledge of visual art, one artist has always stuck with me: J.M.W. Turner.
Turner was a key artistic manifestation of one of the most amazing confluences of art, science, engineering, philosophy and understanding of the world in history, from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to about 1835 - a period Paul Johnson called "The Birth of the Modern" in his book of the same name, a time when the precepts for many of the lynchpins of what we call the modern world were actually invented and popularized; things and ideas as diverse as the macadam road, steam power, indoor plumbing, pre-emption, trousers, romanticism, mass education, generalized wealth and popular concern for general welfare, the internal combustion engine...
...and in the case of Turner, the color yellow. Prior to Turner, the technology of pigmentation hadn't developed to the point where it could produce a genuine yellow paint; prodded by Turner, it did - and the new color in Turner's palette allowed him to pioneer the representation of light and the interplay of light and shadow and the atmosphere in a way that no artist before had. Turner's work was both realistic and intensely evocative, an achievement of both art and technology.
And, according to Charles Paul Freund, of overcoming disability:Turner’s vision has been debated before, but [British eye surgeon and art buff James] McGill’s diagnosis is a specific one: The painter suffered some color blindness, affecting his reds and blues, and saw the world through cataracts. The latter would have resulted in his perceiving "exactly that effect of dazzling shimmering light we see in the paintings."
This, however, is a problem for some people.
Turner's style was, along with Byron's poetry, Shelley's prose and Beethoven's music, one of the founding pillars of Romanticism, the artistic tradition that eschewed the physical and empirical, and probably was most concisely stated by John Lennon - Byron, Shelley, Tchaikowskii and Thoreau would have probably felt "All you need is love" (fill in the unquantifiable, intangible human value of your choice) was a perfectly fine summation of the Romantic ideal. Later romantics and their descendents completed a separation of empirical and ethereal that would have horrified the likes of Turner, who saw the material, artistic and spiritual linked in ways that defied ideology.
Which is something both art and science need to rediscover.If true, such a diagnosis would hardly diminish Turner; it would make his achievements more impressive, because he’d have chosen to make his disability a part of his method. Yet despite a wealth of suggestive case studies...the effort to understand art in terms of biology remains peripheral, and art remains locked in its Romantic cage.
If Turner did strive to make art from a clouded vision, his effort would have been one of intensifying intellectual engagement with the world, not of Romantic spiritual alienation from it. A Turner with fading sight would not have been trapped by biology; he would have been using his work to transcend it.
Read the whole thing, naturally.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/3/2004 06:30:50 AM
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
First Ten Songs - I just hit shuffle on my MP3 player. Here are the next ten songs:
Team report at ten.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 02:27:47 PM
The Sound of Markers Being Called In - As word of John Kerry's complete absence from voting starts to circulate, it only makes sense that his biggest supporters - the media - are closing ranks.
In a prominent place on this morning' s Today show commercial interview, Katie Couric noted "So, you're heading back to Washington to vote?"
Kerry: "Yes, if a vote looks like it's going to be close or very important, I will fly back to Washington to take part".
Couric: "What are you voting on?"
Kerry: "I'll be voting on the gun show loophole, and on the ban on assault weapons..."
And on, and on. It was as if it was done off a script written by Terry MacAuliffe.
Why would Couric be so concerned about Kerry's itinerary?
As Powerline notes in quoting the BoHerald:The Herald reports: "During his run for the presidency, Kerry has missed every one of the 22 roll call votes in the Senate this year and was absent for 292, or 64 percent of the roll call votes last year, according to a Herald review of Senate records." Isn't this one Bush campaign commercial that writes itself?
True - which is why Kerry, with the seeming connivance of the media, is making such a deal out of these votes.
This is what we're up against.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 11:38:56 AM
Kerry Scrambles - John Kerry is in the middle of a five minute unpaid campaign commercial on the Today show.
Couric lobbed him a softball about gun control: "You believe in gun control, don't you?", which led to a two-minute uninterrrupted drone in which Kerry hit both sides simultaneously; "I'm a gun owner and an avid hunter", he started, on his way toward attacking the sunset on the Assault Rifle ban and linking the "gunshow loophole" with terrorism.
However, when it turned to gay marriage - "I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman...", he emphasized front and center, before tossing out civil unions.
What does that tell us about Gay Marriage? If John Kerry opposes it, it must be an absolute slam-dunk safe stance.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 07:14:48 AM
The Hype Machine - I'm watching the "Today" Show.
Katie Couric: "Who is Ed Schultz? Meet the man that some say could be the left's answer to Rush Limbaugh".
I'm stunned.
Is this how desperate the left is? Is this who they're pinning their hopes on, to seize the airwaves from the conservative phalanx?
I'm...stunned?
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 07:05:02 AM
Idiots and Spin - First, the idiots.
Former "Republican" governor Arne Carlson is leading an effort along with former Vice President Walter Mondale to try to repeal the Minnesota Personal Protection Act.
For starters, the Strib published a logically-incontinent piece by Carlson, which makes me wonder two things; how desperate is the victim disarmament movement, and who at the Strib decided that this was publishable?
Oh, yeah - and how did we ever elect this hamster?
Carlson starts with the scare quotes:More than 15,000 people applied for permits to carry concealed handguns in Minnesota in the first seven months after the state made them easier to get. Of 15,873 who applied for the permits in 2003, 139 were denied, according to a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension report released Monday.
Before the MPPA passed the Legislature last year, the left was crying that anyone could get a permit. What Carlson shows us is that even writing a bad check - not a violent crime the last time I checked - can get your permit revoked.
Another 20 permits were suspended, revoked or canceled. In three cases, they were taken away because permit carriers were under the influence of alcohol. In two other cases, holders were under restraining orders for stalking or threatening people. In one case, a permit was suspended over the reckless discharge of a gun. Another wrote a bad check.
Carlson continues:Of those who had a permit application denied, most -- 84 -- were rejected because applicants were considered a danger to themselves or others. Many of the others that were rejected were because the applicants didn't take required gun safety and training courses or had been convicted of domestic violence.
Think about this (or, if you're a member of Citizens for a Supine "Safer" Minnesota, try to think): the police and sheriffs are denying roughly 1/2 of 1% of permit applications for cause.
1/2 of one percent. The report shows a sharp increase in the number of people allowed to carry handguns, although it also shows the state is not on track to meet a prediction that 90,000 would get permits in three years.
The "prediction" was a number pulled ad rectum by a couple of Legislative researchers. In none of the 33 states that preceded us have more than one percent of elegible people applied for permits. Under the old law, 11,381 Minnesotans had been licensed to carry as of the end of 2002.
Arne Carlson thinks this is a Bad Thing.
Until the new law took effect on May 28, police chiefs and sheriffs had broad discretion to deny permits to carry, and some of the metropolitan counties issued few permits.
The change showed in the report. Most of the new permits were issued in metro counties. Hennepin County, for example, issued 2,710 permits while Ramsey County issued 1,188. Anoka, Dakota and St. Louis counties also issued more than 1,000 permits each in the law's first seven months.
No. This reflects the politically-biased "discretion" that the metro police exercised in issuing permits under the old system.
Arne! How many of those new permits have been used to commit crimes?
I'll wait. I'll have to.
My question to the Strib and to Arne Carlson; did Citizens for a Supine "Safer" Minnesota feed you these "facts", or did they come straight from the Strib?The new statute guarantees a permit to practically any adult who gets the required gun training and safety classes, pays an application fee and passes a criminal and mental health background check.
And this is a problem precisely why?Now the spin; the Strib and KARE11 both report that Carlson and Mondale's presence make this a "bipartisan" effort.
I use the term RINO - "Republican In Name Only" - very sparingly. Arne Carlson earns it richly. He was fiscally profligate, socially craven, and was a strong an advocate of victim disarmament as any DFL hamster.
Note to Arne Carlson - get your sorry, unwanted ass back out on the golf course. You were a worthless governor, and you're a worthless ex-governor.
Fritz? Don't get me started.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 07:02:02 AM
Stupid Labor Tricks - Metro Transit drivers may be ready to strike tomorrow.
Metro Transit is holding firm on money.
I'm not hearing any sympathy for them among bus passengers I know. Among non-bus commuters, most don't know what bus they'd take to get anywhere anyway.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 06:39:36 AM
Sullivan's Descent - Sullivan notes in response to an email yesterday:
If you take seriously the fact that this country is headed toward fiscal catastrophe in the next decade, then restraining spending and raising some taxes in the next four years is almost as essential as tackling the entitlement crunch. Neither Bush nor Kerry wants to help. They're both cowards (although Kerry seems to have a better grip on fiscal reality than Bush does). So gridlock is the best option. The combination of Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress was great for the country's fiscal standing. Independents and anyone under 40 concerned with the deficit don't need a Perot. They just need to vote for Kerry and hope the GOP retains control of at least one half of Congress.
In peacetime, I might - MIGHT - almost agree with Sullivan.
But this isn't peacetime.
If the mainstream Democrats were remotely responsible when it came to foreign policy and defense, I might agree with you.
But the Democrats are not responsible when it comes to foreign policy and defense - and it doesn't take a rocket scientist ,or even a particularly avid reader, to see how frighteningly trivial they are. They are unfit to wear the same label that FDR, Truman and JFK wore.
And until we have a second party in this country that can be trusted IN ANY WAY with defense and foreign policy - in this case, especially until the Democrat party produces a candidate that any rational person would trust as a Commander In Chief, the notion that "gridlock is good" is fatally flawed.
In this case, "fatally" means "people die". Thousands of them.
In 1992 and 1994, when the world looked to be at peace for the foreseeable future, and the Republicans were selling out their core beliefs and the DLC Democrats were bad-but-not-too-bad, "gridlock" was an acceptable solution.
Today? No way.
Fiscal problems can be fixed. Dead Americans can not be.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 06:26:40 AM
Why Schools Can't Succeed - My father taught high school for the better part of 40 years. He was easily the best teacher I ever had in 12 year of public school and 4 more of college. Everyone should have a teacher as good as my dad. (Just watch - this'll be the post he actually reads). I say this to state my bona fides; when liberals talk about conservatives and our views on education, it's usually to say that we "want to kill public schools".
No, I don't.
And it's irrelevant. They're killing themselves. In all honesty, I don't think there's any way they can succeed. And it's not for any - or at least all - of the reasons conservatives usually cite.
It's much more complicated than that.
----------
This story might be apocryphal. The parallel is not.
Every morning since long before history was recorded, a shaman of the Zuni tribe, in the American southwest, gets up before sunrise. He prays for the sun to come up. The Zuni believe that if one of their shamen misses this ritual, the sun will not rise. In the Zuni faith, it is their prayers that make the sun rise every morning - and since the prayers always get said, and the sun always rises, well, there's your proof!
Every spring, a couple million American teenagers walk across a few thousand stages and receive their high school diplomas. Like the Zuni, the assembled teachers and parents take a correlation - that the kids in their gowns and mortarboards can read and write and add and multiply and analyze to whatever extent they can - and assume causation - that it's because of the twelve years they spent in school.
The more I learn, and the more I deal with both kids and schools, the less I believe that there's a link.
----------
Ever watched a kid playing?
If you ever pay attention to the energy an five-year-old puts into something, you realize bright and early a key truth; if a kid wants to learn something that is not completely beyond their cognitive and physical ability, there is nothing you can do to stop them. They will learn it. Nearly every child is born with innate curiosity and ability to learn things.
So what do we do with that? Starting at age five, we sit them in a chair and tell them what to learn, and when. We turn learning into game with rules set by other people. The kids that are well-adapted to play the game - who are inclined toward satisfying the demands that others place on them - are rewarded with tokens of approval; good grades, fun stuff to do, the sort of approval that makes lab rats, pets and children respond in the way Pavlov first documented. The rest earn some sort of label or another; if they don't learn what they are told to learn at the pre-set time, they earn a token of disapproval, the Bad Grade; enough of them, and they get a worse label, like "poor student", or "special needs", or "learning disabled".
If it's a child whose learning style doesn't mesh with having his or her (but usually his) butt jammed into a chair or a classroom for seven hours a day, and needs a release for the excess energy, they get another label - "Off-task", "Disruptive", or the big guns, "ADHD", and "Unmanageable". Medication and "special" education await them.
How does this mesh with politics? More tomorrow.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 06:07:05 AM
Open Letter to Gay Marriage Activists - Mitch Berg here. I'm a conservative, a Christian, a divorced guy, and someone who's been on both sides of the gay marriage issue. I may be the least anti-gay Christian Conservative you will ever meet, although some gay activists have tried to quibble with that. They were were wrong then, and they still are.
Andrew Sullivan has long stated a case about gay marriage that has come, at times, very close to convincing me to support the idea - although it has its absurd components to it as well. Sullivan is right about quite a few things; while the Catholic church and most protestants as well will say that marriage is about a man and a woman getting together to create a family, there is no church that bars, for example, the infertile from marrying; churches don't comb through their records to find the childless and warn them to get busy or they'll get annulled.
I think there's a case - a strong one - to be made for civil unions among gay people. I say "case", not "slam-dunk".
Neither Sullivan nor any other pro-gay-marriage activist I've heard has addressed either my major concerns about the issue, or the one, overriding point that Sullivan, as eloquent as he is, consistently fails to touch. If the state tosses out the traditional definition of marriage, what replaces it? "Two people who love each other?" So now the state must toss out a 10,000 year old definition of "Marriage" - as stable and cross-cultural a concept as humanity has ever shared - and cough up a definition of "love", a concept that changes every generation or so? Where do you draw the line between "people who can marry" and those who can't? And by "line", I mean a line that will pass logical muster in a court of law, a place that doesn't easily forgive intellecual and logical sloppiness. Please show me a line that will allow two "people who love each other" that will not allow any pair of roommates or pals or co-conspirators to call themselves "Married" for any reason they want. By the way, "people do that today - look at Britney Spears" will not cut it as an answer; if two people marry for any significant amount of time, then dissolution has serious penalties, even in our no-fault culture, especially if kids are involved. And do you think opening marriage to gays will lower the number of frivolous marriages? What's the over-under on Rosie O'Donnell's marriage?
To cynics, of course, the whole thing is about paying for AIDS. As with so many issues, I recoil at the cynics' logic - but can't prove them wrong, either.
So here's my challenge to all of you that support gay marriage; since the Federal Marriage Amendment is dead on arrival (and I sincerely doubt anyone, including Karl Rove, expected differently) but 2/3 of the American people still oppose the idea of gay marriage, you have some time here:
I see no reason to alter the traditional definition of marriage - and great dangers in doing it. I also can also see reasons to allow binding civil unions between gays.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/2/2004 05:05:56 AM
Monday, March 01, 2004
The Three Signs of Spring - In my little corner of the Midway, there are three key signs that spring has sprung:
.It's an early spring this year, as his post indicates.
Now, the fun part is going to be seeing if there's any kegerator trend that we can tie to the Presidential election...
posted by Mitch Berg 3/1/2004 06:54:38 PM
Open Letter to Andrew Sullivan - Andrew:
I owe you a bunch. I had never heard of blogs before reading your site - and I didn't read any other blogs until after I started this one.
And while I disagree with you about gay marriage, you did prompt me to think about the issue - a lot. I support civil unions now, which I didn't before. Chalk up half a convert.
But in today's column, you say:For my part, it confirmed something I've suspected for a while. John Kerry is highly unlikely to put John Edwards on his ticket. And his spending plans make even George Bush look fiscally responsible. A must-read this week: the Washington Post's analysis of Kerry's big spending budget plans. It looks increasingly as if anyone who cares about fiscal sanity is going to have to sit this election out.
Andrew: This is insanity.
You've observed yourself; the war on terror is the major issue in this election, and it doesn't take a discerning pundit to see that John Kerry is a complete no-show on the war and all foreign policy. You know this election will be a close one, so you know that staying home will be the same as voting for Kerry, especially given the consuming Bush-hatred that animates the left.
You disagree with Bush's spending, even as you note that Kerry would be even worse, and he'd raise taxes, which would neuter the recovery, perhaps send us into double-dip recession. You are also mortified by the Administration's stance on gay marriage, even while noting that Kerry is no better.
So I'll say this: If you are a conservative and you love this country - and you've adopted it as your homeland, Andrew, so you must - then the sane course of action is obvious. We need to stop this insane talk about sitting out the election over our pet issues, and do the following:
I won't say sitting out the election is "treason"', as some of my overheated friends do.
But if you really do believe that the stakes are what I think we agree they are, then it'd be dereliction of citizenship.
That goes for all of you conservatives out there.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/1/2004 08:10:50 AM
Five Days- The Northern Alliance Radio Network debuts on Saturday at noon, on AM1280 The Patriot here in the Twin Cities.
It's going to be a fun show; more about the debut show's line-up later this week.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/1/2004 07:44:54 AM
All About Ed - As I mentioned last week, I have a very long screed about education in the hopper - one that is likely to get my conservative friends just as exercised as my liberal ones.
Last week, I hadn't decided if I was going to run the whole, DenBeste-ishly long piece as one log blob, or break it into four posts. It'll be four posts, starting tomorrow. Two reasons for this:
So it starts tomorrow, in four parts, which will give me a Friday deadline to figure out what the actual ending is...
posted by Mitch Berg 3/1/2004 07:39:48 AM
Saving Senator Rudy - Saint Paul from the Fraters has uncovered a massive injustice: the highest-ranking references to former Minnesota Senator Rudy Boschwitz visible on Google are a set of scabrous hatchet jobs put out by a stealth "progressive" front group.
The Saint savages the scabrous assassination:Boschwitz wasn’t “whipped” in 1996. Wellstone only got 50% of the vote then, precisely what he got in 1990. While Boschwitz did decline from 48% of the vote in 1990 to 41% in 1996, this can mostly be attributed to the presence of vanity candidate Dean Barkley of the Independence Party (who got an appalling 7% in 1996). Wellstone never whipped anybody. Throughout his elected tenure, until his death, he remained a divisive, polarizing force, one never supported by more than half of Minnesotans.
Read the whole thing? Duh.
Regarding TPJ’s description of Wellstone as a “poorly funded populist”, according to the Almanac of American Politics (2002 edition), here are the 1996 totals for campaign contributions in their Senate race:
Wellstone - $7,459,878
Boschwitz - $4,385,982
Regarding their value laden characterization of Boschwitz’s voting record and Minnesotans reaction to it, simply ridiculous. Raving, malignant rhetoric worthy of a Star Tribune editorial. Not even worth dissecting.
What is worth pointing out is their emphasis of the “Jewish” question in the 1990 campaign. Something voters were “repulsed by” according to TPJ. In truth, this controversy was one of those patented last week of the campaign hit tactics by the Democratic party. And this one the media swallowed and disseminated to an unprecedented degree.
But here's the important part (and the ironic one, given the previous post): Saint's plan for electronic restorative justice:With Google it’s all about the links. The more sites linking, the higher on the hierarchy you go. Therefore, if you care about the legacy of Rudy Boschwitz, about historical accuracy, or about a woman’s right to choose (to read the truth about Rudy Boschwitz), you need to help us ascend the staircase of Googling preferences. Link to the truth. Link to this post. Link to Fraters Libertas today! Remember, only you can save Rudy Boschwitz’s legacy.
Heck. If it'll help, I'll add some more links. Anything to help. right a wrong.
I encourage you to do the same.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/1/2004 05:00:48 AM
The Numbers - I'm thinking Bush is going to have to start getting these numbers out there:
The numbers speak of strong overall economic growth. The gross domestic product — the figure for the total output economy — grew at an 8.2 percent rate in the third quarter of 2003, and at a 4 percent rate in the fourth quarter. The GDP is forecast to grow at a 4.5 percent rate in 2004. As economist J. Edward Carter writes: "For the third consecutive year, the U.S. economy is poised to grow faster than most other industrialized economies. France, Germany and Japan, for instance, are not expected to grow even half as fast as the United States."
It's eight months until the election, and it's already shaping up to be a doozie. As many things as I think Bush messes up, he's got a lot of potential great stuff out there - and Kerry's an almost boundlessly weak candidate, if we let him be.
The numbers indicate an economy constantly finding new and better ways to work. Nonfarm productivity — a crucial indicator of economic efficiency that corresponds over the long term with higher wages and greater national wealth — grew at a healthy 4.2 percent rate in 2003. During Bush's first three years in office, productivity has been increasing at a 4.1 percent annual rate, the best start to any presidential term in roughly 50 years.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/1/2004 05:00:06 AM
Sunday, February 29, 2004
All About Oscar - The Oscars are going on (not that I'm watching or anything), and according to Yahoo News, the producers are "worried" about activist stars hijacking the ceremony for a political stump.
Soooo worried: The Academy Awards (news - web sites), attended by all of Hollywood's good and great and watched by up to one billion television viewers across the globe, presents a tempting soap-box for politically active stars who win awards.
Hopefully, lots.
"Hollywood egos cannot resist telling us what they think about what's happening," said awards expert Tom O'Neil.
Last year, liberal US documentary maker Michael Moore scandalised Hollywood and America when he lauched a vitriolic attack on US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) for waging war in Iraq (news - web sites) during his acceptance speech for his best documentary Oscar for his anti-gun film "Bowling for Columbine."
With free-speaking left-wing actors Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin sure to take the stage this year as presenters if not as best supporting actor winners, and with equally combatant Sean Penn also nominated, organisers are bracing for possible fireworks as conservative Bush seeks re-election.
Robbins, a Green Party activist, fiercely opposed Bush over the war in Iraq along with his Oscar-winning partner and fellow 2004 Oscar presenter Susan Sarandon,
"Who knows what people are going to say," O'Neil said.
I say let 'em speak. Don't even shoo them off the stage after their 45 seconds (or whatever) is done. Let 'em talk til 4AM.
Because I think the traditional tirades from our out-of-touch, hothouse-bred, relentlessly-elitist "Hollywood Elite" are pure PR gold for conservatives; listening to the prate and gabble of these hamsters makes liberalism look just plain stupid.
If I were Terry MacAuliffe, I'd hire a team of saboteurs to shut down the network feeds from the show. Every minute the likes of Michael Moore and Tim Robbins are allowed to yammer causes a thousand votes to switch from "D" (or "G") to "R".
posted by Mitch Berg 2/29/2004 10:00:26 PM
Not To Be Trusted - I'm listening to the Democrat candidates talking with Dan Rather right now.
They're talking about Haiti.
John Kerry: "Our president, as usual, waited too long to act". Hm. And then when he acts, you'll be there to heckle the decision in the Senate.
John Edwards: "We have to put a political process in place." Reporter: But Aristide is a terrible president! Edwards: "We need to put a process in place!". Reporter: But he was put in place by Clinton! Why aren't you criticizing him? Edwards: "But the President did what he always does - ignored it! The president talks about a doctrine of pre-emption. How about a doctrine of prevention?" Right. Like Democrats were so famous for doing in the 1990's.
Kucinich: "I'd create a department of peace".
I can' watch this anymore. Further proof - if any were needed - that none of these hamsters can be trusted with foreign policy.
UPDATE:
Edwards: "Do you think this country will be changed from Washington, DC?"
Kerry: "I believe we need a president with the experience to fight the tough fights".
Like you haven't with a single tough fight in your entire post-Navy career?
UPDATE 2:
Edwards is tearing into Kerry's inconsistencies. Just hammering him. He's using today's WaPo refutation of Kerry's alleged deficit reduction plan.
Kerry's responses sound patronizing, arrogant, and - added bonus - don't actually respond to any of the issues.
I hope the GOP strategists are watching this.
UPDATE 3:
Sharpton is really, really pissed. "If you want a two-way discussion, just say so!" He feels he's getting short shrift on the time, and he's right - but he's stopping just short of playing the race card.
Of course, when he starts to speak, he makes no sense.
The real question is, why is he (or Dennis Kucinich) here at all.
posted by Mitch Berg 2/29/2004 10:10:31 AM
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